dana, what are you drawing? what conclusions are you drawing from what you're hearing? >> let me give you a little bit of color of what i witnessed, maybe better to say what i smelled coming over here. i took the back way where senators have hide aways in the capital, and i smelled a lot of firewood. people are lighting fires like they're in for a long night here on new year's eve. and perhaps that is a good sign that there is genuine optimism that they could have a vote tonight. that is what i was told by a senior democratic source, that the goal is tonight, senate democrats insist they're not there yet. there's still some outstanding issues on the republican side, however, there was a meeting probably now about an hour, hour and a half ago, among all senate republicans, and many, many senate republicans came out and said they did believe we were very, very close, and they were sticking around for a vote tonight. so that's where we are right now. but we are also anticipating, as jessica reported earlier, joe biden to come up to the senate to talk to his fellow democrat